I am noticing that as time goes by, it gets more difficult to spend time learning. I mean,- on one hand it was never all that easy- since by the time I got home from school, I was usually too tired to do much homework. But in any case, this seems to be universal. Only some rare individuals manage to grow and develop as time goes by. Leopold Vietoris wrote his last mathematical paper when he was 102 [or 103]. [He stopped skiing when he was 80, and he stopped mountain climbing when he was 90.] Beethoven as time went by just got better and better. The 9th is nothing like the 1st symphony.
But for most people like me it is hard to improve with age.
So as a minimum at least to keep the goals in mind, I would like to recommend what one ought to at have finished once. The two Talmud and Midrashim [even with no commentaries] so that at least once he will have finished the entire Oral Law. Then the entire Avi Ezri of Rav Shach at least one time from cover to cover in order to gain an insight into the depths of the Oral Law. Then in terms of the two other areas that some rishonim/mediaeval authorities recommend Physics and Metaphysics, I would say to get through the basic material at least up until String Theory. [That would means the two basic areas Algebra and Topology, plus the basic subjects leading up until String Theory--Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.] When Ibn Pakuda and the Rambam recommend metaphysics it is clear they meant Aristotle and his commentaries. But after that I am not sure, since philosophy seems to have taken some detours. The best I saw is the Kant-Fries-Nelson school. And I think Hegel is vey important, even though he is different from the Kant-Fries School. Each has some important points, but it is hard to see which are the important point to embrace, and which are the weaker points. How to separate the wheat from the chaff?
It was pointed out to me that some parts of the Oral Law do not seem relevant. My answer to this is that learning Torah is more about the idea of holiness [or the idea of the numinous of the Kant Fries Nelson school.]
